Ubuntu Manpage: pmdaproc - process performance metrics domain agent (PMDA)

NAME

       pmdaproc - process performance metrics domain agent (PMDA)

SYNOPSIS

       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/proc/pmdaproc [-AL] [-d domain] [-l logfile] [-r cgroup] [-U username]

DESCRIPTION

pmdaproc is a Performance Metrics Domain Agent (PMDA) which extracts performance metrics
describing the state of the individual processes running on a Linux system.

The proc PMDA exports metrics that measure the memory, processor and other resource use of
each process, as well as summary information collated across all of the running processes.
The PMDA uses credentials passed from the PMAPI(3) monitoring tool identifying the user
requesting the information, to ensure that only values the user is allowed to access are
returned by the PMDA. This involves the PMDA temporarily changing its effective user and
group identifiers for the duration of requests for instances and values. In other words,
system calls to extract information are performed as the user originating the request and
not as a privileged user. The mechanisms available for transfer of user credentials are
described further in the PCPIntro(1) page.

A brief description of the pmdaproc command line options follows:

-A Disables use of the credentials provided by PMAPI client tools, and simply runs
everything under the "root" account. Only enable this option if you understand the
risks involved, and are sure that all remote accesses will be from benevolent users.
If enabled, unauthenticated remote PMAPI clients will be able to access potentially
sensitive performance metric values which an unauthenticated PMAPI client usually
would not be able to. Refer to CVE-2012-3419 for additional details.

-L Changes the per-process instance domain used by most pmdaproc metrics to include
threads as well.

-d It is absolutely crucial that the performance metrics domain number specified here is
unique and consistent. That is, domain should be different for every PMDA on the one
host, and the same domain number should be used for the same PMDA on all hosts.

-l Location of the log file. By default, a log file named proc.log is written in the
current directory of pmcd(1) when pmdaproc is started, i.e. $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmcd. If
the log file cannot be created or is not writable, output is written to the standard
error instead.

-r Restrict the set of processes exported in the per-process instance domain to only
those processes that are contained by the specified cgroup resource container. This
option provides an optional finer granularity to the monitoring, and can also be used
to reduce the resources consumed by pmdaproc during requests for instances and
values.

-U User account under which to run the agent. The default is the privileged "root"
account, with seteuid (2) and setegid (2) switching for accessing most information.

HOTPROC OVERVIEW

       The pmdaproc Performance Metrics Domain Agent (PMDA) includes an additional  set  of  per-
       process  metrics  with  an  instance domain of processes restricted to an "interesting" or
       "hot" set.  Unlike the stock metrics exported by the proc PMDA,  which  have  an  instance
       domain  equal  to  the  current  processes, hot metrics have an instance domain which is a
       subset of this.  This hotproc instance domain is determined by  a  configurable  predicate
       evaluated over some refresh interval.

       As  well  as  the  equivalent  per-process proc metrics, hotproc provides a cpuburn metric
       which specifies the CPU utilization of  the  process  over  the  refresh  interval,  total
       metrics  which  indicate  how  much  of the available CPU time the "interesting" processes
       account for, predicate metrics which show the values of the reserved variables (see below)
       that  are  being  used  in  the hotproc predicate, and control metrics for controlling the
       agent.

HOTPROC CONFIGURATION

       The configuration file consists of one predicate used to determine if a process should  be
       in the interesting set or not.

       An example configuration file may be found at $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/proc/samplehotproc.conf

       This  file  with  any  modifications  can be copied to $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/proc/hotproc.conf in
       order to configure the hot metrics. The pmstore(1) and pmStore(3) interfaces can  be  used
       as well (described below).

       The  predicate  is described using the language specified below.  The symbols are based on
       those used by the C(1) and awk(1) languages.

       Boolean Connectives
              && (and), || (or), !  (not), () (precedence overriding)

       Number comparators
              < , <= , > , >= , == , !=

       String comparators
              == , !=

       String/Pattern comparators
              ~ (string matches pattern) , !~ (string does not match pattern)

       Reserved variables
              uid (user id; type integer) uname (user name; type string),  gid  (group  id;  type
              integer)  gname  (group name; type string), fname (process file name; type string),
              psargs (process file name with args; type string), cpuburn (cpu  utilization;  type
              float),  iodemand  (I/O  demand  -  Kbytes  read/written  per  second; type float),
              ctxswitch (number of context switches per second; type float), syscalls (number  of
              system  calls  per  second;  type float), virtualsize (virtual size in Kbytes; type
              float), residentsize (resident size in Kbytes; type float), iowait (blocked and raw
              io wait in secs/sec; type float), schedwait (time waiting in run queue in secs/sec;
              type float).

       Literal values
              1234 (positive integer), 0.35 (positive float), "foobar" (string; delimited by  "),
              /[fF](o)+bar/ (pattern; delimited by /), true (boolean), false (boolean)

       Comments
              #this is a comment (from # to the end of the line).

       Examples
                cpuburn > 0.2 # cpu utilization of more than 20%
                cpuburn > 0.2 && uname == "root"
                cpuburn > 0.2 && (uname == "root" || uname == "hot")
                psargs ~ /pmda/ && cpuburn > 0.4

       The hotproc.predicate metrics may be used to see what the values of the reserved variables
       are that were used by the predicate at the last refresh.  They do not cover  the  reserved
       variables  which are already exported elsewhere. A hotproc.predicate metric may not have a
       value if it is not referenced in the configuration predicate.

DYNAMIC CONFIGURATION

       The hot metrics can also be configured at runtime through the pmstore(1)  interface  (and,
       implicitly, the pmStore(3) API)

       Examples
                pmstore hotproc.control.config 'fname == "mingetty"'
                pmstore hotproc.control.config 'uid == 0'

       To force the config file to be reloaded:
                pmstore hotproc.control.reload_config "1"

INSTALLATION

       The  proc  PMDA  is  installed  and  available  by  default.   If  you  want  to  undo the
       installation, do the following as root:

            # cd $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/proc
            # ./Remove

       If you want to establish  access  to  the  names,  help  text  and  values  for  the  proc
       performance metrics once more, after removal, do the following as root:

            # cd $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/proc
            # ./Install

       pmdaproc  is  launched  by pmcd(1) and should never be executed directly.  The Install and
       Remove scripts notify pmcd(1) when the agent is installed or removed.

FILES

       $PCP_PMCDCONF_PATH
                 command line options used to launch pmdaproc
       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/proc/help
                 default help text file for the proc metrics
       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/proc/Install
                 installation script for the pmdaproc agent
       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/proc/Remove
                 undo installation script for the pmdaproc agent
       $PCP_LOG_DIR/pmcd/proc.log
                 default log file for error messages and other information from pmdaproc
       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/proc/samplehotproc.conf
                 simple sample hotproc configuration
       $PCP_PMDAS_DIR/proc/hotproc.conf
                 default hotproc configuration file

PCP ENVIRONMENT

       Environment variables with the prefix PCP_ are used to parameterize the file and directory
       names used by PCP.  On each installation, the file /etc/pcp.conf contains the local values
       for these variables.  The $PCP_CONF  variable  may  be  used  to  specify  an  alternative
       configuration file, as described in pcp.conf(5).